Bringing Innovation to Treasury Services

Jim Gifas looks to help Capital One revolutionize its treasury product set.

While the importance of innovation is often mentioned with regard to banking these days, it is usually associated with consumer banking products, such as mobile RDC and mobile photo bill pay. However, Capital One's Jim Gifas believes the same innovative thinking should be brought to bank's corporate customers.

Gifas, a 2013 Bank Systems & Technology Elite 8 honoree, joined Capital One in April as senior vice president and head of the Treasury Management Product Management & Innovation Group. He manages a team of fifty people and leads all aspects of product management and development functions, including industry and segment strategies. Gifas reports to Colleen Taylor, head of Treasury Management and Enterprise Payments. Previously, Gifas served as head of Treasury Solutions for RBS Citizens Bank, where he played an integral role in the bank’s development of one of the earliest mobile banking application for corporate payment and banking.

Gifas says Capital One has laid out a strategic roadmap to revolutionize its treasury products and services set, which also involves a "significant investment" in this area. Gifas will play a key role in shepherding the roadmap into a reality, which he says includes "everything" related to treasury services.

Mobile for corporate customers is specifically something Gifas has much experience with, especially after his work at RBS Citizens. He says corporate customers are increasingly looking at mobile as an extension of their desktop.

"On the consumer side, mobile gives you instant access to information, the ability to make payments and view deposits, why would corporate customers not want that in their business lives as well?" he asks.

He notes that since corporate clients are generally dealing with significantly higher amounts of money that consumer customers, there is a bit more trepidation from them when it comes to security related to mobile. Gifas feels it is important to educate them on how to protect themselves from fraud, while also building solutions that protect the customer as much as possible.

Automation in treasury services is another big priority for Gifas. "That's something that’s top of mind for me because it is top of mind for our customers," he adds.

Specifically, automating in corporate payments is a focus for Gifas and reducing the number of checks, which are expensive to process. Along those lines, Gifas is also looking at ways to help Capital One's corporate clients make more efficient payments, whether that be by credit cards, wire transfers or ACH.

"The perfect solution will vary by customer and depend on their specific needs," he says.

Ultimately, he says the goal is to provide treasury services products that are "easy to use, intuitive and add value to the business."

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio

It will be interesting to see how/if Capital One leverages its prowess in customer analytics in the treasury services space. Maybe it will be less in slicing/dicing corporate customers as it does with consumers, and more about applying analytics to market and product insights it can offer its treasury services customers.